Stepping into his black 1972 Monte Carlo -- with chrome wheels and an OUR MAN bumper sticker -- Price drives reclined in his leather seat, legs stretched out, cracking jokes and ordering around important people with the speakerphone on full blast.

This doesn't look like a man about to face the trial of his life.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price visits with Precinct 1 constable employees as he makes a stop at the retirement of Constable John Garrett, right, at the end of December 2016.

(Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer)

Price is 66. Since 1985, he's been Dallas County's first and only black commissioner -- a political legend, the thunderous voice for an otherwise-overlooked constituency, who has refused to budge from his seat, never seeking higher office but amassing more and more power over the small world of county government.

On Feb. 21, Price will stand trial. He's charged with a huge betrayal: selling his office by taking nearly $1 million in cash, cars and land in indirect bribes from businesses while helping them win lucrative contracts and approvals. If convicted of all the charges, he could be in prison for the rest of his days.

Price has sworn he's innocent. He says he's unfairly targeted and misunderstood by his critics and the news media. He likens his situation to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. being indicted, or even David facing Goliath. Yet he insists he never thinks about the case.

Price is as complicated a figure as Dallas politics has ever had. To his mostly minority constituents, who have elected him nine times, he's a strong black man who rose from the Jim Crow South to champion racial equality in Dallas. Their votes for him have paid off: Price has helped boost the county's hiring of minorities and minority contractors, and pushed through overhauls of the jail and Parkland Memorial Hospital.

But that same swagger and righteous anger that his supporters love is what so many of his critics seem to hate. To them, he's a race-baiting, power-hungry opportunist whom they convicted of corruption in their minds years ago.

Price's trial isn't just about his own fate. It's about Dallas and what Price has meant to the city and county for decades. Is he driven by a genuine desire for racial justice and fairness, or is he just out for himself? Is he a hero or a crook -- or both?

Just about everyone has an idea about Price and who he is. But to really get to know the man, you might need to get in his car and drive to the place he grew up, 20 miles east of Dallas: Forney.

"Those were the most formative years of my life," Price said over the Monte Carlo's 400-horsepower roar on a recent Friday morning, cruising Forney's strip mall-lined streets that were once dirt country roads.

"This was all cotton fields. You can't even really imagine."

Jim Crow, cotton and cars

Price grew up in Forney in the 1950s. Back then the town, as he tells it, was, "Population: 1,544, and most of it was cattle." It was here that Price got his first and most enduring taste of the humiliation and pain of segregation, and the anger that came with it. Desegregation of schools and public places wouldn't come until 1966, when Price was 16.

Price was the eldest of six. His father was a minister and a truck driver. His mother was a maid for a wealthy white family that owned Mitchell's Furniture, the big furniture store in town with the "picture show" above it. When Price was young, his family lived in the servants' quarters behind the Mitchells' manor. His mother gave birth at home because black people weren't allowed at the doctor's office. At the picture show, black people would pay at the window, then go up a back staircase to sit in the balcony, which white people called the "crow's nest."

In 1958, farmers with trailers full of cotton line up outside the Forney Cotton Gin, which was then the last gin in Kaufman County.

(File/Staff)

John Wiley Price was born in 1950 and grew up in Forney, Texas.

(Courtesy)

A family photo shows John Wiley Price (background, second from right, just above the hand) with the choir at church when he was a child.

The black school Price attended, Booker T. Washington High, held classes in the hottest summer months. In the fall, while the white kids were in school, Price and his classmates would haul 10-foot-long burlap sacks to the fields and pick cotton under the scorching sun from dawn to dusk. To pick the cotton, which was about 24 to 30 inches high, Price remembers, they had to either stand and bend over, or kneel on the ground. The thorny burrs would make their hands bleed, and if they bought gloves, they'd be torn up within a day or two. During their one break for lunch, they'd try to cram under the trailer for a bit of shade. They'd make $1.50 for every 100 pounds, or about $3 a day.

"Want to talk about analogous to the institution of slavery?" he says. "It was extremely hard on your fingers and your knees, and your back would hurt like hell."

An image of John Wiley Price as a young man, one of many in a sibling's collection of family keepsakes.

(Courtesy)

One year at Christmas -- Price remembers he was around 7 -- he got a bicycle. It was the best gift he'd ever received. He was used to getting apples, oranges and walnuts every year, or maybe socks or a board game.

He raced out to the street on his red and blue bike. Two of the white neighborhood kids were outside. They'd also gotten bikes -- theirs were chrome, and much shinier.

Your bike isn't new, they told Price. That's a used bike.

Price ran inside and told his mom.

"That's the best Santa Claus could do," she told him.

Price never lost his fascination with wheels. He worked himself raw as a teenager, mowing lawns and shoveling outhouses for older ladies around the neighborhood. At night, he mopped and buffed the floor at Stuckey's, a "travel store" that sold pralines and figurines. As soon as he saved up enough money, he bought his first car, a two-door, yellow 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.

In those days, Price wasn't thinking about going into politics. He wanted to open a funeral parlor, he said, because "funeral directors were driving the Cadillacs."

He now owns eight cars, luxuries he enjoys despite living on a commissioner's annual salary that started at $54,000 but has since ballooned to $154,200 plus a $9,300 car allowance. If the feds are to be believed, those cars were signs that Price sold his office, and possibly among his motives for doing so.

Price shoots that down, saying he bought the cars at bargain prices; nearly all were used and many had been repossessed. He says the feds have misconstrued what he owns and overvalued his cars by double their actual worth.

"It's like everything else," he says. "They don't have a clue."

Price says his fascination with cars is just a hobby. He buys parts and materials to work on them himself. He'll go on about his engine -- all 454 cubic inches of it -- for a half-hour, if you let him.

"Golly, I'm 66," he says. "Never, ever taken a vacation. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't have a lot of things I do."

'You always remember'

In Forney, Price pulls into a parking lot fronting a single stucco building with a flooring store on one side and a Cici's Pizza on the other. He walks around the back of the building, now a fenced-in parking lot.

This is a place Price can't forget. Fifty years ago, it was Rachel's Cafe, where he would line up in the back with other black kids and their parents. They weren't allowed inside -- that was whites-only. But their money was still good there, and a black cook would sell them burgers through a window in the kitchen.

Price glances at the traffic light, the stores and the ground, before opening his car door.

"Everything changes, given time," he says. "But the sting is always there, in your ear. You always remember. Just because the scenery changed, doesn't mean it changes."

A little way down the road, across the street, the cotton gin still towers, a gray building topped with cylinders. It used to run 24-7, a constant reminder, he says, of the work the black folks did to enrich the white owners.

Now, it's an antique shop.

An education in Dallas

Not long after he got his Bel-Air, Price realized there was nothing for him in Forney but to "eke out an existence." He was 18 when he came to Dallas.

He got a job at Sanger-Harris, selling menswear and then TVs and stereos for a commission. He enrolled at El Centro College, joined a fraternity and got involved with the black-power movement on campus. He won his first election there, for the student senate, with his posters showing him smiling, hair in a short Afro style. He'd learned about slavery in school, but never heard about great African-American heroes. He started reading about them and got inspired.

Campaign materials forJohn Wiley Price when he was running for school senate at El Centro College in Dallas.

"The whole love and fervor for black -- for knowing yourself -- has got to be self-taught," he said. Slavery, he said, "is not your history. That's what occurred to you. W.E.B. Du Bois was not a part of slavery. Marcus Mosiah Garvey was not a part of slavery. Paul Robeson was not a part of slavery."

In 1984, Price was elected commissioner. People came to him with all kinds of needs, such as when someone's water got cut off or they felt they had been discriminated against, said Betty Culbreath, a top aide then.

One Christmas Eve in the 1990s, Culbreath recalled, a man called Price's office and said he couldn't afford a gift for his daughter. Price gave Culbreath money and sent her scrambling to find a bike for sale at the last minute and deliver it to the man's house.

Stories like that run through southern Dallas. Price doing things out of his own pocket for his constituents, people who need it. But those stories don't always make it north of the river. There, Price is known more for the notoriety he gained in the '80s and '90s, when he led protests and marches over alleged racism at Dallas police stations, Parkland Memorial Hospital, NorthPark mall and all of the news outlets in town.

November, 1990 - John Wiley Price leaves the Police Department's crimes against persons division after meeting with detectives. The Dallas County Commissioner turned over a gun he said he had during a confrontation with an off-duty officer.

(File 1990/Staff)

November, 1993 - John Wiley Price after being arrested by Dallas Police for criminal trespassing at NorthPark shopping center.

August, 1991 - John Wiley Price and supporters demonstrate outside of a local TV station, which they accuse of insensitive news coverage and discriminatory hiring and promotion practices.

(David Woo/The Dallas Morning News)

April, 1986 - Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price talks to a citizen while sifting through a stack of messages, during one of his first years in office.

(William Snyder/The Dallas Morning News)

A campaign poster for Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price.

(Family Photo/Staff Photographer)

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price listens during the county court proceedings on August 26, 2014. Commissioner Cantrell read a resolution that would ask the district attorney to remove Price from office while the federal corruption charges against him are pending.

(David Woo/Staff Photographer)

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and Commissioner John Wiley Price listen during a Dallas County Commissioners Court special meeting to discuss the Ebola crisis in October, 2014.

(Andy Jacobsohn/Staff Photographer)

Price was arrested several times, for painting over alcohol billboards in black neighborhoods, for ripping off a woman's windshield wiper during a march, for scuffling with a carpenter whose ankle ended up broken. He eventually spent a few weeks at Dallas County Jail, where he continued to hold county meetings behind bars. That stint sparked Price's passion to fix overcrowding and other deplorable conditions there.

What outraged so many in the white community was the same thing that resonated with the black community.

"When you hear his voice, it speaks beyond a particular issue to a whole basket of frustrations, which is why people love him," said former council member Dwaine Caraway.

Caraway was once an ally of Price, but the two now have a bitter, personal rivalry. Caraway blames Price for breaking up his first marriage; Price won't talk about it. Like Caraway, plenty of people in southern Dallas have deep differences with Price, but they acknowledge his place as one of the city's most important black leaders.

Price stopped marching in recent years, but he still has a hair-trigger temper that can border on violence. On the Commissioners Court, he once ripped the gavel out of County Judge Clay Jenkins' hand. In other instances, he has stood from the bench and shouted.

Last year, during the Democratic primary against Caraway, at a debate at the gospel radio station KHVN-FM, the two men nearly scuffled and had to be held back from each other.

What prosecutors say

In court records, federal prosecutors have detailed alleged schemes from 2001 through 2011: Price would pressure companies that wanted county contracts to hire his friend, Kathy Nealy, as a political consultant for tens of thousands of dollars. She'd allegedly take a cut then pass the money to Price. Meanwhile, prosecutors say, Price secretly leaked Nealy internal county emails and documents that gave her clients an advantage over competitors. He would publicly advocate for her clients and vote in support of them, according to the charges.

None of the contractors have been charged.

Prosecutors say Price laundered the bribe money through African art purchases and a company run by his top aide, Dapheny Fain. Fain will be on trial with Price. Nealy, who was charged along with them, recently got her trial postponed because of issues surrounding a prior immunity deal involving her testimony in the corruption trial of former Dallas City Council member Don Hill.

Price's lawyers have argued that all of the payments were legal.

Employment opportunities and ego clashes

When Price first took office in 1985, he and Culbreath were the only black employees in the administration. Minority contractors struggled to win county deals.

Now, more than 50 percent of workers are black -- a disproportionately large share relative to the county's 22 percent black population.

In an undated photo, John Wiley Price looks over election returns with campaign worker Betty Culbreath at his headquarters on election night.

(File/Staff)

John Wiley Price, left, speaks during the debate at a forum for the District 3 commissioner's court seat, while Betty Culbreath awaits her turn to speak at the African American Museum in Dallas in March, 2012.

(Steve Pfost/Staff Photographer)

Price takes credit for that. He also claims to have massively increased the amount of money the county pays minority contractors, from tens of thousands of dollars before he took office to hundreds of millions over the years. These numbers could not be independently verified; Daniel Garza, the county's purchasing director, said there's no good tracking system currently. Whatever the number is, nobody disputes minorities are getting far more contracts today than before Price took office.

"We've been able to place people in positions that have demonstrated that it's nothing to do with ability, and everything to do with opportunity," Price said. "Unfortunately, we wind up having to do that every day."

County Administrator Darryl Martin, who is black, acknowledged he probably owes his job to Price's insistence that a black candidate be interviewed for the county's top manager.

"He pushes for people of color to get the opportunities to at least be seen," Martin said.

Price's administrative assistant, Cynthia Wilson, said Price was a household name when she was growing up because he was known as "a Martin Luther King for Dallas."

There's no question Price's concern about helping African-Americans has helped them win jobs and contracts. It's also opened him to criticism that he uses race as a political bludgeon. He once took offense to an official describing paperwork disappearing into a "black hole." ("White hole," he corrected.)

To Culbreath, Price's stands for racial justice are more about helping himself politically.

"Black people are very emotional because we were so discriminated against and treated so poorly," Culbreath said. "When you think you've got somebody who's really doing something for you, you really believe that and you're really loyal to them. But they had no clue all these decisions were benefiting other people and not them."

Dwaine Caraway (left) motions to incumbent John Wiley Price as Democratic primary candidates for Dallas County District 3 commissioner participate in a February 2016 candidate forum at the African American Museum in Fair Park.

(File/Smiley N. Pool)

Price's ego is an issue too, Caraway said. He pointed to the lack of economic development and the closings of businesses in southern Dallas over the years. Price couldn't work well enough with other elected officials to promote growth, Caraway said.

"We should be much further along," Caraway said. "More could have been done within the community, and not just bring jobs to the county."

One of the biggest examples critics point to of Price not helping -- and even hurting -- his constituents is the Inland Port. It's featured in his 109-page criminal indictment. The port is a hub of warehouses in southeastern Dallas County that began developing in 2005. It was supposed to be a big job creator, giving businesses incentives to distribute goods shipped into Houston, and transported by rail or truck throughout the country.

Richard Allen, a California businessman, bought 6,000 acres in the port. He accused Price of pressuring him to give Price associates a cut of his business, either through hiring them as consultants or by giving them part ownership. When Allen declined, Price took revenge by delaying the county's approval for Allen's business to be eligible for breaks on federal trade tariffs and taxes, Allen has claimed.

The indictment also accuses Price of taking cash from Nealy while she was being paid by Hillwood, which is billionaire Ross Perot Jr.'s company. The indictment alleges that Price then took action to aid Hillwood, a competitor of Allen's.

Price has denied those allegations. His attorneys plan to call Perot and Nealy to testify. Perot and Hillwood have denied any wrongdoing and they haven't been charged.

To his critics, Price's involvement with the port was about enriching himself at the expense of the black community he claims to champion.

Kathy Nealy (left) and her attorney Cheryl Wattley leave the Earle Cabell Federal Building in July 2014. Nealy was indicted and accused of secretly funneling almost $200,000 to Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price as a straw purchaser of four pieces of real estate, and handing over more than $100,000 in rent payments from a property.

(File/David Woo)

A law enforcement agent photographs a Bentley owned by John Wiley Price that was parked in the garage at the home of Dapheny Fain, top assistant to John Wiley Price, in DeSoto, Texas in June 2011, as FBI agents began searching the offices and home of longtime Dallas County commissioner John Wiley Price and those of several of his associates.

(G.J. McCarthy/Staff Photographer)

Dapheny Fain, top assistant to Dallas County commissioner John Wiley Price arrives at the Dallas County Administration building in June, 2011. Price vowed at the time that it would be "county business as usual," as he carried on his duties under the cloud of an FBI investigation.

(Jim Mahoney/Staff Photographer)

A law enforcement agent photographs a vehicle outside the DeSoto, Texas home of Dapheny Fain, the top assistant to Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, in June 2011, as the FBI executed federal search warrants on Price's home and office, and those of key associates.

(G.J. McCarthy/Staff Photographer)

"That would have been the best thing that would've ever happened to the southern sector of Dallas County because it would've brought thousands and thousands of jobs," said former County Judge Jim Foster. "I'm convinced it was a shakedown. He wanted a slice of the pie and Allen wouldn't give it to him."

To Foster, Price's downfall came because he thought he was untouchable. During Foster's tenure, Price mocked him ruthlessly, once bringing a placard to court calling him "Judge Foster Gump," comparing him to Forrest Gump.

"I call him the alpha male bully. It's either his way or the highway," Foster said. "The only time he goes to a business and says you need minority contractors involved is when he thinks it benefits him."

Price's supporters dispute the notion that he damaged the Inland Port. Rick Loessberg, the county's planning and development director, said the port has been "extremely successful" in creating thousands of jobs. If it's fallen short of expectations, he said, that's because of the economic recession that started in 2008.

Married to the county

Price's personal life is as much rumor as fact. He's been connected with any number of women. But he insists his life's boring. When he was 19, he married Vivian Salinas. They had a son together the following year, John, and divorced in 1981. Price never wanted to marry again. And he never did.

Price says he has a good relationship with his son, despite published reports that painted it as rocky in the 1990s. The Rev. John P. Price has three daughters and works as a minister in Cedar Hill. He stays out of politics, though he has occasionally given the opening prayer at Commissioners Court. Through his father, he declined to comment for this story.

Price says he spends much of his free time alone. He doesn't cook, but he doesn't need to. A group of older neighborhood women make him dinner most nights. He doesn't get lonely because he's around people all day long.

Commissioner John Wiley Price works in his office in June 2016. He says he reads every document that comes across his desk.

(Jae S. Lee/Staff Photographer)

The home of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price is in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas.

(David Guzman/Staff Photographer)

Sporting a bowtie adorned with the image of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price revisits the black cemetery in his childhood home town of Forney, Texas.

(Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer)

"I'm pretty much a homebody," he said. He says he goes to bed around 9 p.m. and wakes around 3:30 a.m. to work out and get to his office by 5:30 a.m. He passes his time reading, especially anything about race in America.

He pays close attention to his style. An artist in Oak Cliff paints his custom bow ties with his historical heroes and quotations. On the day he goes to Forney, he's wearing one with Harriet Tubman and her quote: "I venture only where God send."

"That history is my guiding post and my role model," Price said. "When I look at all the people who came before me, I'm not the first person with ability to be there, I'm the first person with opportunity. So how dare me not get up every day and put forth 110 percent?"

Price often says he considers the county job not just his calling, but his wife. The county, too, won't know what to do without Price during the trial and possibly after, said Martin, the top administrator.

Worried? 'Not at all'

Price parks outside the Prairie View Cemetery, the black cemetery in Forney that's across town from the white one. Pink and yellow flowers lie beside some graves, which sit on brown tufts of grass and twigs. Some headstones have cracked, and some have sunk into the ground. Price's family isn't buried here -- most of them are in Terrell -- but he knows the names. To him, many of these stones represent someone who never got to live as a full citizen. He nods at the grave of his old neighbor, Ms. Susie Hurd.

"It's just sad," he said, looking around. "If you're not respected in life, you're not respected in death."

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price visits Prairie View Cemetery, the black cemetery in his childhood hometown of Forney.

(Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer)

On the drive back to Dallas, the conversation turns to what's coming next for Price.

He knows he hasn't got much time left. Even if he's acquitted, which he insists will be the case, he's aware of his own mortality. "I got more in the rearview mirror than I got in the windshield," he says. He was "born a grape," and wants to keep doing his job "until I'm a raisin" and can't contribute anymore.

Price is heading back to work. He steers the Monte Carlo over the Jefferson Boulevard Viaduct across the Trinity River. The downtown Dallas skyline rises in front of the windshield.

You don't worry about the trial? he's asked.

He stares straight ahead and thinks how to answer. His smile vanishes, his face tightens. When he opens his mouth, his speech is quieter and slower.

"Not at all," he says. "Why would I? I'm centered. Faith and fear can't dwell, not in the same temple."

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized the indictment against Price as it relates to Kathy Nealy and the development company Hillwood. The story has been corrected to reflect that.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price drives back to downtown Dallas in one of his vintage collectible cars after revisiting his childhood home in Forney.

(Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer)

Commissioner John Wiley Price poses for a photograph in his office in Dallas, in June 2016.

(Jae S. Lee/Staff Photographer)

Correction:A cutline in an earlier version of this story misidentified the location of the Forney Cotton Gin. It is in Kaufman County.